Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday September 08, 2010 @03:55PM
from the there-goes-the-tech-budget dept.

MexiCali59 writes "Four of California's largest school districts will be trying something new on eighth-grade algebra students this year: giving them iPads instead of textbooks. The devices come pre-loaded with a digital version of the text, allowing students to view teaching videos, receive homework assistance and input assignment all without picking up a pen or paper. If the students with iPads turn out to do improve at a faster pace than their peers as expected, the program could soon spread throughout the Golden State."

California is in the middle of a hiring freeze for the State, and a huge deficit. Where exactly are they getting the money for these iPad projects for these districts, let alone for the rest of the State if they decide to advance it?

Same as here in NY. School districts are bitching about the state withholding funds. In reality, they waste money on unnecessary crap like in TFA. To make the bitching even more egregious, most districts have plenty of money saved in "rainy day" type funds to cover budgets shortfalls.

Same as here in NY. School districts are bitching about the state withholding funds. In reality, they waste money on unnecessary crap like in TFA.

For a lot of places the "tech" funds are independent of their general budget. As you are likely aware you generally do not replace computers every year; however, if on the years you don't replace equipment you don't spend your tech money then you lose it for when you do need to buy new equipment.

That's what is happening in every government agency. If the idiots in charge were not all collectively doing this, then, for starters, there would be a rainy day fund when they really needed it. Agencies would actually be able to request bigger budgets when they really needed it, and, this is crazy, we'd actually have money to give them.

It should be criminal to blow a budget simply to try and get the same amount or more for the next budget cycle.

It should be criminal to base next years funding on what was spent last year and little else. This needs to be fixed before any of these depts are going to address the other side of it (spending in order to have access in the future to similar funds). I've seen some downright insane wastes as a result of end of year surpluses.

But it doesn't. You can't just throw money at a problem and find a solution, in fact the most worthwhile solutions are the ones that cost the least. The US government has no problems tossing money in education/infrastructure but its all worthless because they are simply redistributing wealth that is more efficiently done in the private sector. Consider a private school, barring some of the weird religious schools which specialize in fascism and indoctrination, private schools are in general better because t

One important fact is that if a parent is paying for the education there is a good chance they will be more invested in making sure their student does a good job rather than just blaming everything on the teacher or school. You will get much more parent participation in event and activities and in most cases it is mandatory.

Private schools perform better because of selection bias. Parents who care about their child's education will go the extra mile, including spending extra money that doesn't always yield results. Stable families and finances are the determining factor in academic success, not the source of the funding for the school.

As someone who went to a private and a public high school, the only difference was that everyone at the private school never wanted for anything and most never had jobs other than school, while in public school a few miles away, they had night jobs just so they could make ends meet for their family. One major problem is that high schools in the US are treated like minimum security prisons for teenagers. Ending truancy laws once they turn 15 could solve the biggest problem of teachers being forced to control students who won't want to be there in the first place.

But really, your entire argument rests on the belief that anyone born poor or with learning disabilities does not deserve an education. That's a pretty low moral standard to aim for, and one you are strangely proud of.

You know, I generally consider myself "libertarian-leaning," but I think you're oversimplifying this to a frightening extent in your pursuit of an ideal.

Why should mechanics read Shakespeare? Because communication is important - probably even more so than the mechanical knowledge, the basic skills of every day interactions - talking, reading, writing - are critical skills for living. Reading other people's writing, especially those who are good communicators, educates you in how to communicate more effectively. Writing your own thoughts down, and practicing expressing your thoughts & opinions has value, no matter how much you, personally, hated English class back in high school

You see, nobody exists in a completely insular little vacuum. Mechanics don't wake up, pork their wife (also a mechanic), and send their kids off to mechanic school (mechanics-to-be!), then go to the garage, where they do mechanic stuff all day without talking to a single other soul. Then come home, eat some Mechanic Cuisine tv dinners, and go to bed, and maybe if they're lucky, pork their mechanic wife again.

A purely utilitarian view of people like you've expressed - where we're all specialized widgets who have "no need" for any learning outside their narrow specialized niche is engaging in overly reductionist thinking, and it's probably not a society that any of us would care to be a part of for long.

I believe the GP was saying that nobody should be forced to study things that go against the grain of his nature. That rarely helps.

Why should mechanics read Shakespeare? Because communication is important

I don't know what Shakespeare or other classics you were reading, but art of clear communication is not exactly the primary goal of fiction literature. Quite opposite, a lot of writing depends on things that are not said, on things that the reader completes in his head and acts out internally, as if he

So you were saying something about communication? There is precious little of that in those books. Implied inferences rule.

You realize that "implied inferences" and "understanding body language" and "nonverbal communication" are a major part of how we communicate, as human beings, right? So tell me again why learning empathy, understanding how to infer things, picking up on and interpreting nonverbal cues, and so on aren't skills that can be taught in books where "Implied inferences rule"?

As an example of well-constructed communication & written thought? Every part.

You see, we can learn from examples, even if we don't speak now like people did in Shakespearean times.

But if it makes you feel better, let's eliminate Shakespeare from the curriculum, but agree that reading well-written poetry, prose, and drama from modern writers has an educational benefit far beyond how quickly you can rebuild a V6 Toyota engine?

And good luck learning anything from a technical manual in the brave new world where mechanics don't have to learn to express their thoughts in written or verbal form. After all, if fundamental literacy is irrelevant to mechanics, who's going to be able to write down how to fix the engine, and who's going to be able to read it even if someone did?

Um, how does it? Lets imagine a scenario with no public schools at all.

Why imagine it ? Just go back a hundred-odd years in history then look at everything before that.

The world wouldn't suddenly collapse, people would just learn more efficiently. People would have a greater deal of specialization which would allow them to better perform in the workplace. Lets face it, why should Joe Sixpack who is really great at, say, diesel mechanics have to read Shakespeare when he can simply be learning how to be

Its been shown time and time again that people will donate when they believe they are actually making a difference, and private groups would be able to use decision making to give support to people who actually need it unlike the government.

Pure horseshit. Call my bluff and link to a peer reviewed study.

There's a reason roads aren't private, and power is regulated, and water is a public utility. That reason is because you cannot trust a corporation with needs, unless those needs can be plentifully produced and naturally lend themselves to real competition. That means MP3 players and apples need very little regulation, because it's pretty easy to tell what these things are, what they are made of, and what purpose they serve.

Hell, when the founding fathers were talking about what the government should run, the latest technology at that time - the post and road systems - was something they all wanted folded into the government. The reason is because under government supervision it could be properly accounted for and equitably distributed across America, and not subject to the whims of aristocracy or price gouging by private entities. That cheap, reliable, price-regulated infrastructure is the bedrock of all modern economies. The intelligence and capability of the workforce is a vital part of that infrastructure, and shouldn't be left to chance by some entity who is only concerned with that quarter's profit return instead of the well being of American society for the long haul.

You want a place where money rules and weak government is powerless to regulate commerce? Pick just about any place in Africa and see how you like the income distribution there. You'll quickly learn that it's pretty tough to have a middle class when the majority of your population can't read or write. But hey, the market said they should just dig in the dirt and have all of their natural resources sold out from under them and funneled into the hands of the tiniest sliver of their upper class. And if the market did it, it's got to be right.

Right?

Government programs benefit those who game the system rather than people who actually might need it. Private programs can deny people which makes it a whole lot easier to give help to those who need it.

Your ideas on economics are fatally childish and unrealistic, unless you have no problem with old women dying in hospital parking lots for lack of kidney dialysis, or a vast population of uneducated and unskilled workers roaming the slums, or kids selling their bodies for their daily bread if they happen to be unlucky enough to be an orphan. Those are all realities right now across the undeveloped world. And true, some of it is due to government corruption, but that just shows you how important a strong and legitimate government is to the well-being of a society.

If all of this libertarian horseshit were true, than the weak states across the world would be drowning in money and happiness. They are not.

Peer review means it has received documented critical analysis by people in the same field, which makes it much more difficult to pass off simple assertions.

I trust corporations with my need for food all the time

No you don't. The FDA (when properly funded and empowered) is the entity that keeps you from dying of salmonella and ecoli. The libertarian solution is for your child to die and for you to "learn" that you shouldn't buy food from the same vendor again.

The rest of your comment ignores the simple truth that YOU are in control of YOUR government, if you li

Governments breed waste, inefficiency and tyranny and can never lead to a net gain for society when compared to a private institution.

Never? Taking that at face value you must advocate the elimination of laws, courts, police, and military (all government institutions) to be replaced with the might makes right anarchy of every man for himself (the ultimate private institution). To me that sounds like a net loss for society.

No, you can't throw money at it, but at the same time, that's not necessarily what the GP is talking about.

Invest is a transitive verb--it's usually used to refer to money, but you also invest time and effort. In particular, investing in education and infrastructure is as much about allowing or encouraging people to invest their efforts as it is about the money--when you are investing in a non-established company, you are giving them money yes, but you are giving them an opportunity to try new things that

"Why is it that almost every single privately educated student is better educated than a public school educated student despite massive redistribution of wealth? With a private school, they have to make every dollar count."

That's, like, one of the dumbest and most disingenuous arguments I've ever seen. The actual answer is simply: Because private schools are rich and spend about twice as much money on average.

The secular private schools analyzed in the study spent $20,100 on each student in the 2007-08 school year vs. $10,100 in public schools. [Washington Post, "Per-Student Spending Gaps Wider Than Known", Aug-31, 2009]

You also missed that private schools get to select students to avoid all the problem students that suck down lots and lots of resources in the public school system, so Private Schools can more efficiently use their resources.

Note that these benefits are specific to devices like the iPad and not PCs. PCs are much more expensive, delicate and difficult to set up, maintain and use.

PCs are a hell of a lot easier to batch set up and load. AFAIK you can't just remotely load up 200 iPads, on the other hand its pretty damn easy to do that with PCs, just network boot them then push all the stuff in from the network.

And the problem isn't the paper, its the publishers. Without copyright you'd pay $2-3 for a textbook, not $50-100 for one. eBook editions of things really aren't all that cheap. Plus, there is a durability/resale question. A textbook is pretty easily readable in 10 years, especially a math book, things aren't going to fundamentally change. History books, science books? Yeah. Math, English, etc? No. But they used this for math and not the other subjects. Will an iPad even hold a charge in 10 years? Won't publishers simply screw schools out of books because with digital ones you can remove the older ones and make them pay for all new books whenever you want to upgrade, etc.

As far as I can tell, yes, this is throwing money at a problem to get in the headlines. Any return on investment is minimal because the iPad doesn't eliminate the need for many things, plus, iPads are fragile. Drop a book in the hall? No big deal. Drop an iPad and you are out ~$500, lose a book and you might be out ~$50-100, lose an iPad and you are out ~$500, someone steals a book? No huge deal. Someone steals an iPad? It lands in a pawn shop somewhere. Etc.

iPads are much more durable than laptops or netbooks. We've been evaluating them at my company. They are also much easier to set up.

Um, ok. So, battery dies in an iPad, what do you do? You can't just put in a new one, the batteries aren't user replaceable. Flash chip goes bad in an iPad, what do you do? You can't just take it out like you could a standard SSD and load up a standardized image on it. Screen breaks on an iPad, what do you do? Its certainly not as easy as changing a laptop's screen.

Also, you can't easily set up limited user accounts. Yeah, there are "parental controls" but that isn't going to be as safe as individual accounts.

You seem to think that there is no problem with a textbook being 10 years old. Well, a lot you (don't) know about textbooks. Not only do they need updating much more frequently then that, many schools don't have enough to give to students. They have to share them in class and cannot take them home. It's a huge problem and a huge expense.

Um, throughout high school I regularly used textbooks that were 10 years or more old for subjects that don't change Math, English, Keyboarding, etc. other than parts in the math textbook talking about a record store, it was just fine.

And so, you mean to say that somehow a school can't afford a $50 book, but can afford a $500 device + $50 book?

As for the $500 for a device. Well, that's as cheap or cheaper than all the texts a middle or high schooler uses and you didn't include all the other teaching content - interactive and all - that can be included. You can make parents share financial responsibility or assume all of it. We used to have to pay for lost or damaged textbooks. Why not iPads?

paper is not the main cost all the iPad is, is just the thing to run it. The book isn't free. You are still paying $50 a book on an iPad, the difference is that the book is electronic and not physical. If the paper was the main culprit I'd have my nook loaded up with all best sellers and would be saving a ton of money. You still have to buy the books. Yeah, there might be a slight discount, its not free though.

Like it or not, the publishers are all moving fast in this direction. Where you see that its because they can make more money I see it as they can provide more value and replace some more expensive assets.

What the fuck don't you get?

A) School pays $500 per student for an iPad

B) School pays $50 per student per book for the iPad

Is the digital model. The paper model is

A) School buys a paper book for $50 per student per book.

Yeah, e-books have some nice extras. Do they justify an extra $500 per student. Hell no.

You're a lunatic to think that textbooks need "updating much more frequently than that". Textbooks need to be decently done, and then you can keep using them. Exceptions would be perhaps history/social study textbooks. The problem is that no grade level textbook is ever methodically worked on and improved. This used to be the case in the times long forgotten, but not nowadays, not in the U.S.

Textbooks are mediocre to start with, they get superficial changes made to them to warrant new editions, and then somehow all bridges are burned and we get a newly written textbook. Newer, but just as mediocre, or worse. And so the mediocricity is maintained. Noone wants to seriously edit, expand and improve upon "old" texts.

Feynman did some rather methodical reviewing of certain California textbooks in mid-1960s. I'm an optimist, so I thought that things have improved. So, a couple years ago I borrowed a bunch of mid- and highschool physics/science textbooks used in Ohio, and I read through them. The quality is rather uniform -- that of bovine manure. I still have nightmares about that -- drowning in manure pits and such. All of the authors, every single one of them, had absolutely no effing clue what they were writing about. I have no excerpts handy, but it was disgusting. Superficially, it all "made sense" and was seemingly fine. But as soon as you started reading and paying attention, it was all crap. A text that others depend upon for learning, without prior experience of the subject taught, must adhere to pretty high standards. The way it is, though, is exactly the opposite. Mistakes, falsehoods and demonstable lack of understanding abounds in those books.

Without copyright, old son, you'd likely not have a textbook. People still generally have this whole "pay me for my knowledge" defect, you see. I know you think information "wants to be free", but it's actually "freeloaders want information to be free", and the producers of information have a lot more value to society than the freeloaders do.

The Internet, by which we participate in this conversation, was created by people willing to think and plan and code not for personal monetary gain but for the betterm

They didn't just throw money. They bought an electronic device that proved to be much more effective than what they replaced.

No, the results of this test aren't in yet. A salesman for the education firm pushing this program says that it's effective. This deployment is a test to see if it's true. Even the initial results of this experiment won't be ready for another few months.

Personally I don't believe this is the best use of that kind of money, but I'm open-minded. Maybe it'll work out. Who knows?

I worked as the Director of Technology for a charter school for 3 years and I looked at pretty good reporting on how one-laptop-per-child programs saw a 15% gain in performance on standardized testing. So I'd lay pretty good odds they will see some sort of increase from this, but probably not as great as they expect since they are doing a weird one-subject parallel.

That's a ridiculous statement you make considering the US spends more per student, by far, than any other country on Earth. The small city where I live spends more than the next highest country which is in Northern Europe. And it's not a little more, it's thousands more they spend. The city has had budget problems for decades now. A significant portion of the population is low-income.

The problem is that too many schools in the city are still crap. But the money ends up going to garbage. If it's not a gimmi

Between the cost of a textbook and the rate at which they become 'obsolete' for the state testing I'd imagine with an educational discount from Apple (no need to make the state pay taxes to itself and can prolly write off some of it as a donation) they probably aren't whole lot more expensive than your regular schoolbook in the long run. Course I'd be interested in knowing what the policy is for broken iPads. Do the kid's parents have to shell out the money for a new iPad? you would for a replacement book.

And how much is the cost of that electronic textbook's license per student? Probably less than $100, but definitely not free. Plus that electronic license probably won't be recycled for 4-5 years like a paper book might be.

I looked at the numbers a few weeks ago for some textbooks for Grad school. My numbers came close without even the cost of an iPad (in my case a Kindle). I can't imagine it would be economical for 8th graders, who will probably not be extremely careful with those iPads.

And how much is the cost of that electronic textbook's license per student? Probably less than $100, but definitely not free.

Free.

Schwarzenegger launched a program in 2009 to create digital textbooks in math and science owned by the state board of education. At the end of 2009 they had ten texts, including math through Calc 1 and 2.

Between the cost of a textbook and the rate at which they become 'obsolete' for the state testing...

Are you asserting that books last less than three years? Because I'm relatively certain that there will be nearly no usable iPads in that same amount of time. They're simply not designed to outlive their replacement models.

Or is the iPad made of magical pixie dust and will therefore not be subject to industry norms? I can see Jobs now, "Profit be damned! There will be only one iPad, and no one will ever want to upgrade it, EVER!"

I feel like the jury is probably still out on the average lifespan of an iPad, but what I'm wondering is if the schools see this as a way to always pass the cost of a replacement on to a student. iPad breaks because it's just plain old? Well, your kid must have broken it, it was working when we gave it to him, so you'll have to pay for the new one! Now all the school has to pay for is updates to the online textbooks.

Well, someone still has to buy the textbook content (and other software) to put on the iPad. I'm not sure the expected lifespan for an iPad, but I'd argue that textbooks are more durable in the face of handling by a highschool (or younger) student who doesn't own it. Also consider that Apple designs its products to be used for a certain duration and then discarded (so you'll buy the new one).

The concept may have merit if the software adds value above and beyond what you get from a textbook. I cannot see

Personally, the idea of an impersonal video showing boring math material would be even worse than have an instructor do it, but perhaps this will allow the more "advanced" students to go at their own pace.

I did attend an "open classroom" for several years and in one of those years, I was allowed to race ahead and finished the english and math curriculum several months ahead of schedule so I could spend more time on that wonderful TI-99 4A [wikipedia.org] hooked up to the beautiful col

Done right, this could make economic sense. Textbook prices have been rising far faster than inflation [back2schoolmoms.com], nearly doubling in 20 years. Some math textbooks can cost over $100. Even assuming they cost only $50, an electronic device at a cost 10 textbooks, but which does much more and can be easily updated, could be a bargain. (In theory, that is. I'm assuming the school district plans well and the kids don't trash them.)

California is in the middle of a hiring freeze for the State, and a huge deficit. Where exactly are they getting the money for these iPad projects for these districts, let alone for the rest of the State if they decide to advance it?

This is a pilot program, Houghton Mifflin and/or Apple are probably subsidizing it.

A pilot program is designed to measure the effectiveness of the device and the costs. It is plausible that a reusable digital device loaded with numerous textbooks could be less expensive than the corresponding set of paper textbooks. Also keep in mind that today's $500 iPad will probably be around $250 in a couple of years. and those are retail prices not educational institution prices.

Much as I dislike them, why not a Kindle loaded with text books. That would be much much less than iPads and less likely to be used for other purposes (like watching YouTube during class).

1. Color is extensively used in modern textbooks.
2. Textbooks are incorporating more software and multimedia.

I had the opportunity to work with a textbook publisher regarding the software bundled with a chemistry textbook. This software included chemical diagramming (2D - for reports and such) and 3D model building and visualization. We also had a few movies illustrating some basic principles. All of this could easily be done on an iPad and be bundled with the textbook. Not so for today's Kindle. I

You want them to be useful for the other tasks, though. The revolution in education will not come from simply digitizing the old ways of educating, it will come from using computers to do things you couldn't do without them. Kindles won't permit that.

In fact, the studious inability for the education world to realize this and act on it is a significant part of the reason why they disgust me so.

This is a pilot program, Houghton Mifflin and/or Apple are probably subsidizing it.

This may be partly a reaction to California's Free Digital Textbook Initiative [bbc.co.uk]. I went to a symposium about the FDTI last summer (more about that symposium here [theassayer.org]. The people interested enough to come were an odd-bedfellows mixture of free-information enthusiasts, commercial textbook companies, and computer hardware companies. The ones with a really, really strong pecuniary motive for participating are the hardware companies.

From the money they hope to save in providing books on the long term I guess. At $50-150 (or more once you get to college) per book these costs really add up. I believe the current average textbook expenses in the US is somewhere near $1000/student/year and you have to take into account that in that number, many rent or buy second hand books and many more simply can't afford the books (like in my city school district where nobody has textbooks). Add to that the gigantic logistics cost of tons (literally) of

400 students for a pilot program? That doesn't sound like too much money to prove (or more likely squelch) the theory that more computers = smarter students.

Also, I'd guess these are being provided either free or at-cost by Apple, with partner Hughton Mifflin bearing the brunt of other costs. By the wording of the article, they seem to be the ones having commissioned the study, not the other way around.

As a side note, why is it always that "something is going bad here, so we shouldn't do anything about anything else until that is fixed." I've heard that people are starving, so why send people into space. We're at war with Russia, why do we need a civilian network. This isn't an A or B choice. When the state is broke, you have to find ways to make basic research continue to happen. Maybe the study will prove that, as I suspect, throwing money at technology is less effective than throwing money at smaller class sizes. Maybe it will show that the extra expense is worth it, especially as it can be amortized over several classes. Students cost thousands of dollars per year anyway. Or maybe there will be a little bump, and California will jump in with India's $100 tablet effort.

Or maybe we need a giant K-12 edu-wiki, which can be drawn from by all teachers and students across the state, and across the country. Oh right, somebody stubbed a toe, so we should just go home until they feel better.

LOS ANGELES &ndash; Next month's opening of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools will be auspicious for a reason other than its both storied and infamous history as the former Ambassador Hotel, where the Democratic presidential contender was assassinated in 1968.

With an eye-popping price tag of $578 million, it will mark the inauguration of the nation's most expensive public school ever

If it is, in fact, more effective at teaching students, it could potentially lead to larger class sizes, which could easily pay for the device. I am skeptical that it will be effective, but it could be - that's why they do pilot programs. I'm sure they will quickly begin to use it for other courses, too. I can see it being particularly useful for foreign languages (where being able to hear the text is important). I think the interactive textbook idea can also be really useful in science (especially at t

I've seen Android devices for a fraction of the price. When you consider how much text books are going for nowadays, the thought that a student or school can rent textbook access could be a major game changer. I had semesters in college where textbooks alone were $300+ and that was 15 years ago.

http://www.khanacademy.org/ [khanacademy.org] really does kick ass. I'm using some of his 5-10 minute videos to supplement my graduate level Linear Algebra stuff. Most of it's straight to the point and if I need clarification on a subject I don't have to turn to the book.

Now how this saves money. I won't know. Then again text books aren't cheap. What ever happened to the OpenSource textbook that I thought CA was assembling to be 'free'?

The key word here is "supplement". I can't count the number of times I've been frustrated by being made to watch a video after Googling around for a tutorial on something or a solution to some technical problem. Reading is simply faster and more efficient than watching videos (unless of course you're dyslexic), yet, "instant access to more than 400 videos" is the major selling point of this program.

I could maybe see the value of providing iPads to kids with learning disabilities...that is, if such a progr

Maybe I'm just a Luddite, but half the appeal of learning from a book (especially for a subject like math) was the ability to quickly flip between half a dozen pages to get to the right charts, reference sheets, and examples, and being able to scribble my illegible notes in the margins. I guess you could do it with an iPad with bookmarks and annotations, but I can't imagine it being anywhere near as natural or as easy as you can with a regular old textbook.

I agree with that...my teachers offer online versions of our textbooks as an alternative for doing homework for people who don't want to carry their books home...but I HATE using the online versions. It feels so much harder to get to the page I'm looking for (especially if it comes to an assignment where you will want to frequently swap between the actual section your studying and things like the glossary/index at the back of the book). Of course assuming the IPad books are stored on the IPad itself and not

Maybe I'm just a Luddite, but half the appeal of learning from a book (especially for a subject like math) was the ability to quickly flip between half a dozen pages to get to the right charts, reference sheets, and examples, and being able to scribble my illegible notes in the margins. I guess you could do it with an iPad with bookmarks and annotations, but I can't imagine it being anywhere near as natural or as easy as you can with a regular old textbook.

A pilot project in four California school districts will replace 400 students' eighth-grade algebra textbooks with Apple iPads in an attempt to prove the advantages of interactive digital technologies over traditional teaching methods.

Didn't we prove that computers have educational value back in the 80's? Then, wasn't it proved a hundred more times throughout the 90's? I guess sometimes you can never have quite enough proof.

Seriously, why limit the students to iPads? When did the school system suddenly become a venue for creating lock-in where it doesn't need to exist? And with all the DRM on iPads, I really do not want to see textbooks on that platform -- textbook publishers pull all sorts of evil tactics already, why give them even more options for trampling on students?

Textbook expenses are obnoxious. Not only does one have the cost of the book, but one must pay for storage to hold the books. At the central facility one must pay for people to manage the books. Check in and check out of text books is generally a multiday process that take an administrator, so just in pay we are talking at a couple thousand dollars per year per school. Books get lost and there is really no way to get kids to pay for books anymore. It is voluntary. You see this in the school library.

you means "Oops, I lost it (i.e. I sold it for $400), please give me another..."

in these discussions, people are assuming that the digital textbooks are FREE, kinda like assuming that digital music (e.g. MP3) is free and that all the costs are in the CD media (in the book format itself)... WRONG...

all you're doing is trading $10 worth of a pretty rugged yet not very steal/lost-susceptible format with a 5+ year life (a book) for a $400, fragile, VERY steal/lost prone format (ipad) with an at-best 2 year life... the costs of the content is going to be similar.

could not write down notes fast enough because their fine motor coordination was shot to hell and the idiot teacher didn't understand that their 8 x 11 piece of paper wasn't as wide as a 16ft whiteboard

couldn't follow said teacher half the time because the kids whispering behind them drowned out the teacher's loud voice

who were denied the copious examples they needed to understand how stuff worked due to the easy-odd-problems-with-answers-hard-even-problems-no-answers BS tha

I still don't get why Gold is an investment...especially if the world breaks down. It's always said that if the civilazation ends, Gold will be the last thing worth something. If the world is at it's edge, the last thing I'd want to carry around would be gold.

I still don't get why Gold is an investment...especially if the world breaks down. It's always said that if the civilazation ends, Gold will be the last thing worth something. If the world is at it's edge, the last thing I'd want to carry around would be gold.

People have held it as valuable since the dawn of time. Why would anything change that?

Besides, all the 'really valuable' stuff is either completely intangible (like knowledge) or transient (like food/water). You simply cannot carry these things in any appreciable quantity...

We all know that computers will make illiterate and innumerate Amerikans literate and numerate.

In the Middle Ages, the perfect gentleman was illiterate, but he knew how to read icons [wikipedia.org], "baton sinistre on azure field", etc. No one had much use for reading and writing because books could only be found in the very few libraries that existed. Literacy was the field of experts only.

When the printing press was invented, books became available to everybody. People became literate. The perfect gentleman was expected

exactly. Receiving homework assistance and entering your assignments without picking up a pen teaches nothing so they should not improve any skills there. Maybe adding some extra tutorial materials in videos might help but from what I remember, it was doing the work which made it stick. So it's all about the curriculum and how it's taught and not so much the device. The device, or any laptop, netbook, or table could save the school and students lots of money by using electronic course materials instead of

If you think an iPad will withstand even 4 years of the abuse textbooks go through, you're crazy. If I assume that they replace the textbooks every year (they don't) and assume the iPad can last 5 years (they won't), then they will break even if the publishers don't charge for electronic updates (they will).